Marriage. It's a hard term to define, especially for me, I've ducked it like
root canal. Still there's no denying that marriage ranks right up there with
birth and death as one of the three biggies in the human safari. It's the only
one though that we'll celebrate with a conscious awareness. Very few of you
remember your arrival and even fewer will attend your own funeral. You pick a
society, any society-- Sunni, Fidembo, Pennsylvania Dutch-- what's the one
thing that they all have in common? Marriage. It's like a cultural hand rail.
It links folks to the past and guides them to the future. That's not all
though; Marriage is the union of disparred elements-- male and female, yin and
yang, proton and electron. What are we talking about here? Nothing less than
the very tension that binds the universe. You see when we talk of marriage,
people, we're talking of creation itself. 'I am the sky,' says the Hindu
bride-groom to the bride, 'You are the earth. We are sky and earth united.'
The ring please Joel. You are my husband, you are my wife. My feet shall run
because of you, my feet shall dance because of you. My heart shall beat
because of you, my eyes see because of you. My mind think because of you, and
I shall love because of you. Are you guys cool with that? Then kiss.
-- Chris Stevens, "Northern Exposure"
